Today Lynn was busy all day so I took the opportunity to head out for a ride with the Gawler Wheelers. The weather forecast was for a shower or two but I thought it was worth taking the chance. I have only ridden with these guys once and that was on their 1 year Anniversary Ride back on the 10th of March this year. I had such a good time on the last ride I just had to ride with these guys again. If you want to know where this ride went then you…

My 3rd ride in 2 weeks since completing the Strava climbing challenge and it felt good! I think my body is in a little shock, riding very little in the last 2 weeks, after riding consistently for 33 days to complete the climbing challenge.

Enjoying the Extra Sleep

Until today, since completing the challenge, I have been sleeping in until at least…

When I travelled to Melbourne to begin my ride back to Adelaide earlier this year, stayed with Margot and Alex who are some friends I had ridden with before when they were living in Adelaide. At the time Margot had a bright pink steel bike frame sitting on her desk....the beginnings of her first major bike project... now she has completed it and ridden it... Elsie is her pride and joy. This is Margot's story which just had to be shared, and with her permission I have reposted her story on…

I suppose I started out the same way as most kids. I learned to ride at a pretty young age and enjoyed occasional rides with my parents along linear park or over to grandma's house. In my final year of primary school there was a small group of us that would ride together. But once high school started, it was too far to ride and the friendships that sustained my earlier riding days fell away, so the bike was relegated to the back of the…

As bike rebuilders, we hardly ever run into proprietary components, ie components a manufacturer designs, to specifically fit their type of bike, and no one else’s. It’s worth-while salvaging just about every old bike – because you can use the parts to repair all sorts of other bikes. The other day, though, we struck an exception, with an old Mongoose BMX. …… .

It arrived with parts missing, so I took it to Wiltja College, for the “Scrap-heap Challenge”, bike-building…

Whats Complete

Back in March I decided to enter the Strava "A Classic Challenge from Specialized " and then at the beginning of April I entered the Strava "Ride Hard to Breathe Easy " challenge. The first one challenged people to climb 105,312 feet in 47 days and the second one challenged people to ride 800km in the month of April. On the 16th of April, on the same…

I discovered a couple of weeks ago that The Elizabeth Star Cyclists ride on Monday mornings as well as Wednesdays and they don't start until 9.30, given that on alternate weeks I work 7 days and feel fairly buggered on Sunday night this seemed an ideal group for me on my fortnightly Mondays off.

Having checked Google maps and Cycle Instead I plotted my route from home to Star Cycles. Unfortunately that was more than a week ago and a photocopy of the relevent street directory would…

The Age have been running a series of articles about cycling (presumably reflecting the interests of its readership). Last week was an article about getting into cycling in adulthood (dare I say it in middle age?). One of the comments suggested that one of the reasons people have to take up cycling in middle age is because its so hard these days to get kids into cycling. But I thought to myself – that’s not true on Adelaide Cyclists! I would say instead that we all go out of our way to…

Everything in life has it's ups and downs, and that includes riding a bike!

In the last few days I've had a swag of bike experiences which I thought I'd better share.

I'll start with the Good - I'm on track to reach my 800k's in April for the Ride Hard to Breathe Easy Challenge, at 331km's so far. I've discovered some new hills (Coach Road, which, if you were interested, is not a good one for covering k's quickly, I think I almost had a heart attack up there, and Mt Osmond,…

Apology

I am sorry my blog is dominated by this challenge but to be truthful I have nothing else to write about as this challenge is taking up so much of my time. If you have any doubt about this then let me attempt to put it into perspective.

We are now on day 26 of the 47 day challenge, Target: 32,100m (105,312 feet)

In 6 months, many volunteers have helped “Bikes for Refugees” at Plympton – for which we are eternally grateful. For the volunteers, all they generally see is the bike, not where it goes … so I wanted to write about how we know there’s a need – and what we do with the bikes after Plympton..

In Adelaide, several welfare organisations help refugee families settle in the community. Some arrange housing; others, furniture; others help with money and bank accounts. Organisations…

Just a "new" way of using my Cateye Astrale 8. As the Android phone with Strava works mostly fine grabbing a ride I have been using the cycling comp much less on individual rides - I haven't reset the thing in ages and now I'm watching long term average speed, actually manage to lift it a little this week, after a few hundred klicks ;-)…

My two oldest kids (7 and 8) competed (along with around 800 other 7-15 year olds) in their first triathlon, part of the Weetbix Kids Tryathlon series. Its an event more than a race, since no times are recorded and there are no winners (everyone gets a medal for finishing). Instead the focus is on having fun and finishing the course safely.

It cost $40 per child to enter, although we got a discount after buying 4 boxes of…

What was the Inspiration

Lets start with what inspired me to attempt this personal challenge. As those who have been following my blog will know I entered the Strava “A Classic Challenge from Specialized” to climb 105,312 feet (32,100 meters) in 47 days. This challenge ends on the last day of April. Discounting rain days, family days and rest days I figure I will be lucky to get 30 days of riding to add to my total. This means I will need to climb an average 1,100m for each ride,…